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Be Still my H(e)art…

Remember, I closed my article on the Younger family yesterday by saying that I was hopeful that I might solve the mystery of who Marcus Younger’s wife, Susanna, was? Well, I said that, but I had no real expectation that it would really happen, not after one already huge breakthrough. I began working through cousin Larry’s matches, sending e-mails, and within six hours or so, I had several replies, one of which was this:

“Hello my name is Andrea. Thank you for sending me this email. I am new to genealogy and have a large interest in my family history. Younger is not a known surname for me, although Hart is. My oldest known Hart ancestor is Anthony Hart born in Oct 1755 in King and Queen, Virginia. He was my 5th great grandfather. He lived in Halifax Virginia in 1840 with his children and grandchildren. How is the surname Hart related to Younger?”

Oh Andrea, let me tell you. You have made my day, my decade, my 30 years, and yes, indeed, this is the second jackpot hit in two days in the same family line. I shoulda bought a lottery ticket but I think I’d rather have this:)

It has always been speculated that Marcus Younger’s wife, Susanna, was a Hart. In fact, it was speculated that she was the possible sister of that one and the same Anthony Hart in Halifax County, Virginia, based on this tax record from King and Queen County, Va. just before Marcus Younger moved to Halifax County. Robert Hart is believed to be Anthony’s father, but that is unproven.

1785

Alterations of land in King and Queen County

Proprietor’s Name QT Land of whom had

Anthony Hart 190a Robert Hart

Anthony Hart 94a Marcus Younger

There are a couple of other records in which they appear together too.

Unfortunately, King and Queen County is a burned county.

Now, we have a couple of pretzel twists that need to be considered. In Larry’s line, Marcus’s son John married Lucy Hart who is mentioned in Anthony Hart’s Revolutionary War pension application in 1832. So Larry could be expected to match Andrea regardless of who Marcus’s wife was.

However, I don’t descend from the same line as Larry and Andrea matches me as well. I descend from Marcus through his daughter, Mary, sister to John who married Lucy Hart. So, I should NOT match Andrea unless I too carry some Hart DNA. But I do, in two distinct places where I also match Larry. On the chromosome browser below, Andrea is orange, I am blue and we are being compared to Larry. You can see that we all 3 match on the same segments on chromosomes 1 and 8.

Furthermore, Andrea and David (from the previous article whose pedigree proved that Marcus and Thomas Younger are related) both match Lawson, but they don’t match each other. This makes perfect sense. David descends from Thomas Younger, who has no known Hart connection. So David matches Larry because of the Younger line and Andrea matches Larry because of the Hart line.

You can see in the chromosome browser view below that indeed, both Andrea, orange, and David, blue match Larry, but in no location do they match each other in addition to matching Larry. No place does their DNA show one under the other, overlapping, when compared to Larry.

Turning now to the spreadsheet where I can see all of the people who match both Larry and David together, I want to know who else Andrea matches.

First, I confirmed that Andrea does not match anyone else from the Alexander Younger line through sons Thomas and James, and she does not. If she had, that would put a very big fly in the ointment and would prevent any conclusion about Marcus’s wife. But since she doesn’t, that obstacle is removed.

We are all four descended from the Marcus line and she doesn’t match anyone who descends from the Thomas or Alexander lines, which makes perfect sense since Anthony Hart looks to be the probable brother of Marcus Younger’s wife, Susannah, based on the historical records and some relationship is now confirmed by the DNA.

Am I ready to call this a positive match yet and Susannah a Hart? Technically, I probably could, but I’m rather conservative and I’m just not quite ready to give an unconditional thumbs up. To make myself feel entirely warm and fuzzy, I’d love to see another Hart match for me or my cousins not descended through John’s line. I’d also love to be able to reconstruct the Hart family back in Queen and King and Essex Counties and have some additional paper document to go along with the results. That would certainly be easier to accomplish were the Queen and King records not burned. This family lived on the border between the two and had records in both counties.

Truly, I’m left speechless about my good fortune this weekend. I’m happy dancing a hole in the floor.

But I’m also left wondering how many other answers are really there, in the DNA of the people we match and I just haven’t worked with the matches effectively. Maybe those walls are just waiting to fall….waiting for me to notice them. Maybe yours are too.

Congradulations! “Diligence is the mother of good luck” — Benjamin Franklin

I continue to enjoy your post. Thank you for your many contributions to genealogy-DNA.

Lee Ramsey

Dallas, GA

robertajestes posted: “You’re not going to believe this. I’m not sure I believe it. Remember, I closed my article on the Younger family yesterday by saying that I was hopeful that I might solve the mystery of who Marcus Younger’s wife, Susanna, was? Well, I said that, but “

I have been feeling out of heart for tracking DNA matches lately. These two posts surely do perk me up! If you run into anyone who is interested in Frances Jeffries who married Anthony Hart, Jr. please send them my way. I have a match that I think is on Jeffries, but cannot find the missing link.

I don’t really have anything, just what I picked up on Ancestry: Anthony Hart (1755-1832) married Nancy or Mary Elizabeth Carlton. I have three people who match me with exactly 14.04 cM on chromosome 19. One of them is an adoptee who is especially persistent. One of them does not reply. The third replied, told me what he knew (very little) and said he was a novice, could I help him? So I am working on his family tree. I made a tree just for him on my Ancestry account and work on it from time to time. This possible Jeffries connection is the only thing I can find. I have tests for four cousins who represents my mother’s paternal and maternal sides, my father’s paternal and maternal sides. None of the four have this same match, however on my mother’s side, each has a different match with some of these people. Unfortunately, my mother’s father and his brother married women who were distantly related, so it is difficult to separate their matches.

Thank you so much Roberta. You have helped me understand my families DNA much better. I look forward to finding better connections by seeing how you have put the pieces together. Thanks again, your fan in DNA, Yerevan.

Wow Roberta! You’ve given me some hope. I’m working an adoption search (for six months and counting) where she started out with a 2nd cousin match (Woot! Woot!) who shared a 50cM stretch with a 3rd cousin match (Woot! Woot!) and it took about 3 minutes to find the common ancestor (Woot! Woot!) And then it dragged and dragged and dragged. Yup – everybody is married to everybody else. Oooh! This match has PHILLIPS and this match has BROTHERS and this match has RICKS…. Okay so we find a GILLILAND descendant who married a PHILLIPS or a RICKS or a BROTHERS – take your pick, there are dozens.

I’ve turned to chromosome matching. Her mother tested so I’ve put those common matches aside. Big spreadsheet – grouped by common segment boundaries. Added the Ancestral Surnames. I have columns with IF statements (if you see the name at the top of this column, gimme a YES) for the repeaters. I know who her deep paternal ancestors are…and then?

I like how the segments for your HART match and for your YOUNGER match just miss each other. I see a chromosome map in a future blog. LOL

Hi Patti, At Family Tree DNA you can compare 5 at a time to the kit owner. You can also select 5 individuals in the Triangulate-ICW view to push through to the browser. Even though they match the person being compared to, keep in mind that it doesn’t necessarily mean they match each other too. Remember the 2 sides of the chromosome thing:)

Aha! I’ve been at GedMatch and 23andMe (where most of my testing was done.)
Thanks! I love, love, love reading these posts where you give us the details of how exactly you’ve discovered relationships. I think there’s a VERY steep learning curve w/DNA. And once you reach a high level of understanding, you seem to lose your ability to “speak” w/”regular” people. I think you do have a high understanding; and it’s a gift that you can still be understood by the masses. Kudos!!

Congrats Roberta! Nice work. I love these success stories!!! They should be spread more widely, although I know many people read your blog. Consider getting it into other places, also. Hey, how about an article in APG?

You’re not going to believe this. I’m not sure I believe it.
The persistent adoptee contacted me this morning (first time in several months) and told me she and I have a new match with a descendant of Silas Garrett and Ann Young. I already believed, but could not prove, that they were my ancestors. I had one match with a guy who was from that line. I did In Common With on the adoptee–sure enough, there was my Garrett match, there was my group of Chromosome 19 matches, which did not include the Garrett guy, but guess what happened when I went to 1cM. You’ve got it! He has a sliver there also!
Now here is what I have gleaned from this. This week is Help-Those-Genealogy-Nuts in Walhalla. The gods are smiling on us and we all have to jump in there and take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Good luck, my friends.